CM Havoc Gaming Mouse and QuickFire XT Mechanical Keyboard Review

CM Havoc Gaming Mouse Closer Look:

Switching gears a little while still remaining on the topic of input devices controlling your computer, we jump to the CM Havoc gaming mouse. Designed specifically for gaming and all of us palm grippers, it has a fat booty. Quite literally. This is quite a bit fatter than the general line of mice I've recently reviewed. It somewhat goes on to mimic Logitech in their golden day mice. But we'll talk more on it in use later. The CM Havoc comes packaged with itself and two little pamphlets – nothing else. Sweet and simple, exactly what you paid for…a mouse!

Starting with the top down profile, the mouse is quite nice looking. It does have a big rear end, but the top view doesn't really portray it – I think my hand adjusting to it at first from a smaller mouse really accentuates this. The top, as well as the scroll wheel, has the nice matte rubbery coating making it soft. This also keeps it dry in the hotter months of gaming when the A/C bill is just a little too much to maintain. The bottom of the mouse has two massive skates that run the entire left and right of the mouse. There is an additional skate at the bottom edge, about the size of your average mouse skate to help keep the glide smooth even with a heavy palm. There isn't one at the top, but it doesn't seem to create any drag with the balance of the mouse.

The left side of the mouse continues the matte rubbery texture along with the addition of an actual rubber grip for the thumb. It's ribbed and surprisingly difficult to slide your thumb across the grooves with even a little pressure applied; seems perfect for gaming, or really just a solid grip. There are three buttons for your thumb to use, with some semi-odd default settings. I will say the button configuration isn't as weird as some we've seen in the past, with the front button being the explorer forward, middle button the back button, and the real odd one being the rear button as a default double-click option. So, it is a little weird, but there is some software you can download from the CM website that allows you to make these buttons about anything you desire.

The mouse continues its smooth looks from the front with a clean simple plug attachment, clean scroll wheel and a glimpse of the two up/down arrowed buttons. The back of the mouse really shows off its large rear end. If you look closely you can see a glimpse of the CM Storm logo. Just ahead you'll see that indeed it does light up there (even further ahead, in the software you'll have the option of seven color choices). From the back, the mouse appears to have a very "swoopy" body that leans to the right a little as if it had perhaps a drink too many. The left indent for the thumb looks smooth front to back – but if you recall from the left profile, it's a little harsher in stepping than it appears. The matte rubber edge does end up above the CM Storm logo where the hard line cuts through the mouse. From there down it's simply the matte plastic rather than the glossy shown on the right. Main point here is to enjoy the fat butt.

Overall the mouse is generally pretty simple in appearance. It isn't overly flashy with something crazy to make it stand out. Usually the ones with flaps/wings that try to stand out aren't very comfortable and lose at some categories of judgment. In this case, the mouse has three left buttons, some lights for indicating mouse profile, a scroll wheel, and a couple buttons for DPI switching, or whatever you desire. It's nothing too crazy yet fits quite well in the palm of your hand – it's like it was designed to be a mouse!

These last pictures provide you a taste at some of the color options available to the mouse. Ultimately you'll have access to set it to one of the following: red, white, yellow, green, blue, teal, or pink. The wheel, DPI arrows, and CM Storm logo all change with the color choice for a nice added touch to whatever your favorite is at your desk. For me, I'll leave it on the blue. I will say that the four DPI level indicators on the upper left remain red no matter what. However, I will also note that what you see here appears to be a pre-production version with the red indicators. The production version appears to light up in a very subtle white that you hardly notice without taking a true top-down look. All in all, it's quite nice to make things match at your desk!